first Reformers were assembled at Augsburgh in Germany, the Protestant princes employed Melancthon, a divine of learning and moderation, to draw up a confession of their faith, expressed in terms as little offensive to the Roman Catholics as a regard for truth would permit. And this creed, from the place where it was presented, is called the Confession of Augsburgh. It is not easy to unravel the leading tenets of the Moravians. Opinions and practices have been attributed to them of an exceptionable nature, which the more sensible of them disavow. They direct their worship to Jesus Christ (addressing hymns even to the wound or hole in the side of the Saviour); are much attached to instrumental as well as vocal music in their religious services; and discover a predilection for forming themselves into classes, according to sex, age, and character. Their founder not only discovered his zeal in travelling in person over Europe, but has taken special care to send missionaries into almost every part of the known world. They revive their devotion by celebrating agape, or love-feasts, and the casting of lots is used amongst them to know the will of the Lord. The sole right of contracting marriage lies with the elders. In Mr. La Trobe's edition of Spangenburgh's Exposition of Christian Doctrine, their principles are detailed at length. There is a

large community of them at a village near Leeds, which excites the curiosity of the traveller; and they have places of worship in various parts of the kingdom. Mr. Rimius published his candid narrative of this people, and Bishop Lavington (who wrote also against the Methodists) replied, in 1755, in his Moravians compared and detected. Mr. Weld, in his Travels through the United States, gives a curious account of a Settlement of Moravians at Bethlehem, honourable to their virtue and piety. See also an Essay on Fanaticism, addressed to the People of his own persuasion, by John Stinstra, translated by Isaac Subremont, of Dublin, 1774.

:—

Dr. Paley, in his Evidences of Christianity, pays the following compliment to the religious Practices of the Moravians and Methodists; he is speaking of the first Christians :-" After men became Christians, much of their time was spent in prayer and devotion, in religious meetings, in celebrating the eucharist, in conferences, in exhortations, in preaching, in an affectionate intercourse with one another, and correspondence with other societics. Perhaps their mode of life in its form and habit, was not very unlike that of the Unitas Fratrum or of modern Methodists." Be it, however, the desire of every body of Christians not only thus to imitate the primitive disciples in their outward conduct, but to aspire

after the liberality of their dispositions, the peaceableness of their tempers, and the purity of their lives!

SANDEMANIANS.

SANDEMANIANS*, a modern sect, that origin. ated in Scotland about the year 1728; where it is, at this time, distinguished by the name of Glasites, after its founder, Mr. John Glas, who was a minister of the established church in that kingdom; but being charged with a design of subverting the national covenant, and sapping the foundation of all national establishments, by maintaining that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, was expelled by the synod from the church of Scotland. His sentiments are fully explained in a tract published at that time, entitled "The Testimony of the King of Martyrs," and preserved in the first volume of his works. In consequence of Mr. Glas's expulsion his adherents formed themselves into churches, conformable, in their institution and discipline, to what they apprehend to be the plan of the first churches recorded in the New Testament. Soon

The author has been favoured with this account of the Sandemanians by a gentleman of respectability, who belongs to that body of Christians.

after the year 1755, Mr. Robert Sandeman, an elder in one of these churches in Scotland, published a series of Letters addressed to Mr. Hervey, occasioned by his Theron and Aspasio, in which he endeavours to show, that his notion of faith is contradictory to the Scripture account of it, and could only serve to lead men, professedly holding the doctrines called Calvinistic, to establish their own righteousness upon their frames, feelings, and acts of faith. In these letters Mr. Sandeman attempts to prove, that faith is neither more nor less than a simple assent to the divine testimony concerning Jesus Christ, delivered for the offences of men, and raised again for their justification, as recorded in the New Testament. He also maintains that the word faith or belief, is constantly used by the apostles to signify what is denoted by it in common discourse, viz. a persuasion of the truth of any proposition, and that there is no difference between believing any common testimony and believing the apostolic testimony, except that which results from the testimony itself, and the divine authority on which it rests. This led the way to a controversy among those who are called Calvinists, concerning the nature of justifying faith, and those who adopted Mr. Sandeman's notion of it; and they who are denominated Sandemanians, formed themselves into church order, in strict fellow

ship with the churches of Scotland, but holding no kind of communion with other churches. Mr. Sandeman died in 1772, in America.

The chief opinion and practices in which this sect differs from other Christians, are their weekly administration of the Lord's Supper; their love-feasts, of which every member is not only allowed, but required to partake, and which consist of their dining together at each other's houses in the interval between the morning and afternoon service; their kiss of charity used on this occasion, at the admission of a new member, and at other times when they deem it necessary and proper; their weekly collection before the Lord's Supper, for the support of the poor and defraying other expences; mutual exhortation; abstinence from blood and things strangled; washing each other's feet, when, as a deed of mercy, it might be an expression of love; the precept concerning which, as well as other precepts, they understand literally-community of goods, so far as that every one is to consider all that he has in his possession and power liable to the calls of the poor and the church; and the unlawfulness of laying up treasures upon earth, by setting them apart for any distant, future, and uncertain use. They allow of public and private diversions so far as they are not connected with circumstances really